Double Red Redemption

Motopod, proudly supported by Road Skin, a UK label specializing in protective outerwear for motorcyclists. Modern biker clothing that you can wear all day long and engineered to save your skin. For the road, for life, visit roadskin.co.uk The Internet radio show all about motorcycle road racing. This is episode number 816. September 30th, 2025, the Japanese GP review.

I can't do these things by myself, so I've got riding alongside tonight, as always, Richard Jott from Across the Pond in the UK. Richard, is it a lovely autumnal evening there? Yes, we always, this is becoming a bit of a weather pod, isn't it? It is. Amongst other things.

Yes, it is certainly autumnal. It's getting dark, which I hate at this time of year. I'm not a fan of autumn, really. I'm more of a spring summer person, mainly because that means you can ride your bike out on the road without getting cold and damp and all the rest of it. So yes, winter is a coming, I'm afraid.

And although we are still enjoying reasonably balmy weather here in the south of the UK, I'm pleased to report, but it is chilly overnight. Yeah. We've had a nice, long, hot, admittedly quite dry summer here, which is not typical, certainly in the southwest of England, where I'm based. But yeah, it's coming to an end, as all things inevitably do. Well, I was just more curious because I saw that you have the vest on this evening.

Yeah, I don't know what it is. My body seems to be changing as I get further into my 50s. And so I seem to be colder than I ever used to be in the past. So I tend to wrap up a bit now. So yes, I've got my gilet on to try and keep the worst of the cold out.

We're in the middle of another little heat wave. We've had mid 80s Fahrenheit here for all this week and very little chance of rain. And so it looks like drought conditions will continue here. But there's no drought of information and stuff to talk about in Japan, even though the racing may not have been the greatest that we've ever seen. But yes, yes.

Why don't we just kick it all off, Rich, and we'll head on in with it and do the news as we start off. What do you say? So Jorge Martin had successful collarbone surgery after his incident in the sprint race, which we'll talk about that in detail because I might have to get the soap box out for that one. He is out for Indonesia and he will not be replaced in Mandalay, which you kind of be hard to get somebody over there, whatever. I understand that.

So poor Martin has had a brutal, brutal year as far as injuries. It was interesting. He had posted on Instagram the x-ray of his collarbone, which in and of itself looked horrible. But of course, I show my wife who looks at it and she's just, when did he break his ribs? She's like, oh, the cartilage is all displaced and this is still bad.

Da da da da da da. It's like, so he's still hurting pretty bad from the seven ribs. She's like, oh, there's one, there's one, there's one, there's one. She like goes through all finds all seven of them that were broke. Yeah.

Well, I suppose that'll show up on an x-ray for quite some time. I guess there's quite a lot of scarring around that area as well. So yeah, I mean, as you say, Jim will come to it later on, but he's had a pretty wretched year, hasn't he? Some of it sort of self-inflicted a bit, but you kind of do feel a bit sorry for him as well. Kind of fate and some decisions and behavior on his part, I think, to be fair, kind of conspired to put him in a pretty awkward position right about now.

But all you can do is hope for better next year. Yeah, I'm sorry that he's this injured. Really, I don't want to see people injured, but I have to admit, his attitude off the motorcycle is a bit much for me to take right now. And I've said that like about Lewis Hamilton, right? I will never take anything away from Lewis Hamilton and what he's done in a race car.

I have issues with how he kind of treats his team and other people around him when he's not in his race car. So I understand, you know, I mean, I get it, but what are you going to do? I would just add to that, that although we haven't seen an awful lot of him this year because of these injuries that he has had, he does strike me as being a bit more, what's the word? I can't think of the right word. Yeah, I think that probably is the right word, Jim.

Yeah, humble, just a little bit less cocky, a little bit less aggressive. I mean, apart from anything else, again, he's been injured, you know, pretty much all season long, it's true. But he does also have a teammate on the other side of the garage that's been knocking it out of the park. Certainly since the sort of first half of the season got out, well, earlier than that, in actual fact, first third of the season got out of the way once he got to grips with the pretty, I mean, Buzek has been doing really, really well. So that obviously puts pressure on Martín as well.

So he has looked a little bit more sort of contri, is that also the right word perhaps? As the season's gone on, it's been a pretty sort of hard crash down to earth for the world champion, let's not forget. I mean, he up until this weekend, he was still the world champion and yet nobody's really thought of him in those terms, have they? Because he just hasn't really been visible particularly. So yeah, it's been a weird bad year for him.

Yeah, it has. That is for sure. Let's move on. Michael Lavertier, I'm assuming this was on the TNT sports coverage that you have this, Rich. Correct.

Was hinting that the future Moto3 rigs may be a Yamaha R7 platform base. So a 700cc twin engine with a race chassis which makes it effectively a one-mix series which has implications for the world's super bike paddock. Now, I initially heard this and said this back like I think around Brunei or whatever three people had tendered for the right to provide the motorcycles for a new Moto3 class starting in 27. Shockingly, Yamaha was on that list of proposals. KTM was obvious that they were going to do that.

They're sort of the favorite bike. I speculated about what kind of shape it would be, kind of a twin thing or whatever and I assumed it'd be sort of a parallel twin laid down kind of in the similar idea of what they have right now. Just put another cylinder beside it. And then Honda would build a V-twin. That would just be Honda.

That's what they would do. Right. And then Yamaha showing up, which I was shocked that Yamaha would be wanting to put in this kind of money. But I'm a little confused about the 700cc part of it. Do you think Michael just misspoke or do you think that's really what he said?

Well, I wrote it down straight away. So I'm pretty sure that is what he said, Jim. And I mean, he would know because he's a Moto3 team owner. So he will be party to some of these discussions. He wasn't talking out of turn.

Nothing is decided. But this is one of the things that is being openly discussed as a solution to. Yeah, well, I say a solution. I mean, you can argue perfectly reasonably. I think that there's nothing wrong with Moto3 at the moment other than the fact that it is quite a small capacity engine and it's perhaps a little bit kind of irrelevant in that way.

And there's also obviously the thing we've talked about a lot, which is that the smaller capacity bikes tend to create big packs and there's a safety stroke danger issue within that. So a bigger bike, a heavier bike might help to sort of break the pack up a little bit. So I guess that's part of what the reasoning is with this being discussed. I mean, I don't know how I fact check that. Perhaps it will come up again, perhaps in discussion in the nearest future, because it's obviously actively under discussion at the moment, whether it would happen as early as twenty seven, I think is in doubt now because there's so much change going on elsewhere.

So it might be more of a twenty eight, twenty nine kind of thing. So we've probably got the current iteration of Moto3 around for a little while to come. Yeah. But as I put in the note there, that does have implications for World Superbike, as there is a myriad of other things as well, because as we've said again, numerous times with MotoGP go in 850, still going to be clearly the premier class in terms of performance. But it's going to put some pressure on World Superbike as a inverted commerce, thousand CC category, because they wouldn't want World Superbikes kind of as fast or potentially even a little faster than MotoGP.

So you do kind of see that supersport class, although it's not really supersport in the conventional old fashioned sense anymore. But, you know, this kind of 600 to 800 ish different twins, triples, different range of machinery that you have in world supersport currently that I can I do think that will become the World Superbike kind of de facto upper echelon. But they do run obviously the R7s in other feeder categories at the moment. So quite how that will get managed, I don't know. But there is a caveat there was that it would be the R7 kind of engine spec mated to a prototype ish chassis.

So you might have the likes of CalEx and I don't know a bit like in Moto2, I suppose you'd have a few different frame manufacturers getting in there, but probably a regulation gearbox, obviously the engine controlled electronics. I mean, I don't know. This, again, doesn't really fit the mold of proper prototype racing as well as I'm concerned. But I suppose it comes down to cost. But the other thing that I actually didn't write on there, Jim, and I will just check if you've heard this on any of the coverage you've listened to some suggestions that MotoGP will go to 25 races a year, which is pretty crazy, but that Moto2 and Moto3 would not feature on all of those, maybe only up to sort of two thirds of those events, which rather begs the question, what the hell else would they have going on?

I mean, there is precedent to this, I suppose, at Cota, where you've had, not AMA, MotoAmerica running instead of Moto2 and Moto3, because they didn't turn up at Cota for quite a number of years, I think. I think that's correct. And years gone by. Certainly that used to be the case at Laguna, didn't it? It was definitely Laguna.

I can say that for sure. Any time that we were at Indy, they always had Moto. Right. I'm probably thinking of Laguna then. OK, but Cota, I think, was always Moto2, Moto3.

OK, maybe I'm misremembering that. But clearly Moto2 and Moto3 teams, in particular Moto3, I suppose, struggle for funding. So if you are going to expand the calendar again up to 25, then there would presumably be some teams that just could not do it from a financial perspective. But I do worry about that because Moto3 in particular is very often the best racing that we see. And I just worry about where the sport's going as it looks to expand further and further in terms of the number of events.

But if you can't take the entire circus with you, I kind of question that myself. But again, I'm old fashioned and I'm a purist. They clearly have to bring other local series and events in to help to fill up the day, because nobody wants to go along for a weekend and watch two MotoGP races, one of which is a sprint. So they'd have to find something else. But again, that was being actively discussed on TNT.

Interesting. We're going to have to have when we get done with the season, we're going to have to have a show dedicated to the Liberty effect of MotoGP. And we'll probably come back to this in more depth at that point, what we think. I just want to go back to the displacement, which I think is interesting. Well, as you said, you know you have eight fifties in MotoGP.

You got seven, nine, six triumphs in the middle and you're going to have a 700cc Moto3 bike. That seems really weird to me. Like the other problem that that I mean, it's not necessarily a problem, but one of the things I think they wanted to do was have like a 500cc twin or something to that effect. So it wasn't the same bike that these kids did junior GP on to where they have all this time and all this data that they have. They get on that bike and they're very quick.

Right. So if you had it to where they've got a different bike and they've got to learn that bike as they are in Moto, is it coming to the MotoGP Caddock? I think that's a better thing to do too. Just that 700 just kind of really like, I'm getting nothing set in stone, but I'm like, Ooh, that's what are you going to, you know, cause I mean, what are you going to do? I mean, obviously MotoGP bikes should be the fastest bikes there, but you're going to, well, are you knocking?

How are you, are you, are you, I'll get it out. I swear. Are you betting that the sustainable fuel is going to knock enough off of the triumphs that they're going to be relatively a second, second and a half slower per lap than the slowest MotoGP bikes? I don't know what they're thinking here. That's kind of really shocked me.

Anyway, I've just done a quick sort of Google AI, no sponsorship intended. So the Amaha R7 is a 689 liquid cooled four stroke parallel twin, not going to produce a massive amount of power. I suppose it doesn't actually state a power output, does it? Oh, 54 kilowatts. I don't get me onto kilowatts.

I don't really understand. So I guess it's probably, I don't know, 70, 80 horsepower. Would it be something like that? Maybe a little bit more, but yeah, it's odd, isn't it? I mean, it'd be interesting to see where that discussion goes.

It doesn't necessarily surprise me that KTM might bow out of the running on it for obvious reasons, and it may well be that that is where Yamaha's interest is lying. And they've developed this bike, not for the World Superbike paddock precisely. I mean, these mid-sized bikes are obviously going to be the future of motorcycling on the roads and everywhere else. So it makes sense to race them. So it makes sense to me that they would look at Moto3 as a kind of a good marketing exercise and development arena for that.

Yeah, I just thought I'd put it up there because I'm pretty sure that's what Michael Lavacy said. So, yeah, before the next show, I'll see if I can get in touch with a couple of people that might know Michael and see if we can just get a bit of confirmation on the rumour. I mean, obviously he's not going to divulge any information. Why would he? But he should know.

And I'm pretty sure that's what he said. Wow. All right. So also for Michael Lavacy, Adrian Fernandez is not confirmed at MLaf for 2026. OK, that's fair.

Yeah. He pointed out that that rumour kind of got going. What was the last round, Jim? My memory is shocking. We were we were in San Marino before we went to...

We were. Thank you. Yes. Miss Arnaud. Yes.

So that rumour kind of kicked off big style at the Miss Arnaud round. Put a lot of pressure on Eddie O'Shea and his family. So although Eddie is not confirmed there next year, we know on the other side of the garage, they've got Joel Kelso coming in, haven't they? But yeah, Adrian Fernandez is not signed. He is in discussions with MLaf, but he's in discussions with several teams, apparently, is Adrian Fernandez and is no doubt significantly sized entourage.

So I think that one will obviously become clearer a little bit further down the line. And hopefully, Eddie might get to stay on because he has shown glimpses of really good form. But, you know, after just one season, he needs more time, really, in my opinion. So anyway, just just to put that one straight, because obviously we did say last time out that it was Kelso and Fernandez in that team next year. And clearly that is not exactly the case just at the moment, although it might yet prove to be.

Right. Arbolino is likely to head to Fantic in a Moto 2 ride. Yeah, his season is in bad. He just got off arm from he just got off back from arm pump surgery. Yes.

Yeah. Which maybe that's why he's been having so many problems. Maybe it is an entire thing and it's an arm pump thing. So that's interesting. So Pramak M2, their Moto 2 Pramaks, and Pramaks Moto 2 team is likely to sign Philip Solatch to their team, which is interesting because I guess they replace Solatch with their price Arbolino with Solatch and whatnot.

So, yeah, interesting. Just the bits of churn and rumors, but they look like they're sort of pretty much nailed on signings now from what, again, was being said across the TNT coverage over the weekend. So let's move to World Superbike where Miguel Oliveira has confirmed it. I'm assuming it's Rocket BMW Motorop. Yeah.

And World Superbike for 2026. He goes alongside Danilo Petrucci. And then this news, Dixon and Chantra are now confirmed at HRC for 2026 as a World Superbike team. Correct? Yes.

Yes. Correct. So both of those pieces of news, obviously, we knew Petrucci was signed at the BMW World Superbike squad and that was some weeks ago. Oliveira obviously is now a kind of refugee from the Moto GP paddock and was being tainted and courted, I should say, by Aprilia for a test rider role because they clearly do need to strengthen themselves up from a test rider and reserve rider perspective. But quite understandably, Miguel wants to race.

And so, I mean, he's going on to one of the plum rides. But I do, again, repeat that the only person that's done anything on the BMW really, I've noticed, well, massively of note in his case is obviously Toprak. So it will be interesting to me to see how Miguel Oliveira gets on because obviously we know he is a quality rider. He's really struggled in Moto GP for the last couple of seasons, it must be said, but it's Moto GP. He's one of the best in the world.

So jumping on a pretty decent World Superbike, yeah, could be could be an interesting sort of exciting move for him. And it'll be fun to watch, no doubt. And yeah, we've been sort of lamenting the fact that this Dixon used, we were waiting, waiting, waiting, weren't we, Jim? And then there were some doubts about whether Chantra would go across the World Superbike. He might go back into Moto2.

Again, that was being discussed across the TNT coverage at the weekend. But I think yesterday or even possibly today, yeah, the official sort of HRC press release came out, spotted it on X or Facebook or somewhere. And at long last, it is official. Right, because they had confirmed that Chantra was leaving LCR. Like LCR had a statement like after the weekend that, hey, Chantra is leaving LCR, which means Marrera is going to LCR.

Yeah, although that still isn't officially announced, is it? And we were speculating that a lot of this would get would get announced at Mategi and it didn't. So but is is Marrera officially announced at LCR? No, Marrera is not. I don't think he is.

No, he is. There's not been any official statement. But I mean, getting rid of Chantra now clears the way for Marrera to move to that spot is what I was getting at. If I said, I'm sorry. No, no, no, I didn't know if you'd spotted something that had come out today.

As you say, the Chantra news is official, although hardly anybody was expecting him to stay, were they? Let's be honest. So maybe we'll get an announcement in Mandelica this weekend. Now that the path is clear, as you say, because it's a bit curious that this has taken so long, really, because Yamaha have found out where they're at with the Pramak squad, haven't they? So there's no lingering doubts about whether Yamaha might get his signature because clearly they were after him.

But the multi-year, no doubt, significant amount of cash offer from Honda. And let's be honest, as we will come to, that is starting to look like a move that might be not quite as disastrous as we might have speculated just as recently as a few races ago. Agree. Certainly a few months ago. So, yeah, I mean, that could be a canny move and maybe they've just been waiting to put ink on the page until they were absolutely 100% sure.

So, yeah. All right, let's get to the qualifying for Moto3. So in the first qualifying session is Rollstone, NEPA, Carpe, Moodley, Rossi, Ogden. I mean, I don't think Carpe should be there because he has qualified very well. So that was sort of, you know, the odd man in, if you will.

But NEPA, Carpe, Morelli on the MLav bike got through and so did Buchanan. When we got to the Moto2, when we got to the second qualifying session, halfway through that, Murata was on top. Munoz was right next to him there. Picaris, Kelso, Carpe and Peroni are all there. Now, Carpe then crashes, which causes a yellow flag, which kind of sets off a weird little system that kept everybody from kind of taking advantage of what had happened.

Right. So basically we're all kind of waiting for that crash to get cleaned up, get the yellow flags in, and then everybody was on a hot lap. Kelso, first one to have a hot lap back in. He went to the pole quickly, but that was surpassed by Rueda and Peroni. And so Kelso had fallen down to third, followed by Picaris, Fersado and Adrian Fernandez.

Then Kelso had a great lap, but Rueda and Peroni just left it that little bit later and wound up, you know, getting by him when it timed out or whatever. Rueda was on pole. Peroni would be in the middle of the front row. Kelso on the front row, though, which was good for good for Joel. Then Picaris, Fersado, you know, I mean, wow, that's like the best qualifying we've seen out of Fersado in quite some time.

So, you know, and again, this is kind of weird because I think of Motegi as like a point and squirt sort of track. And the Hondas don't seem the Honda Moto3 bike doesn't seem to work well in that situation. And yet, Fersado and Fernandez were both inside of the top 10. In fact, they're right next to each other. They're five and six on the grid, which is, you know, yeah, I mean, it was just it's just an interesting point.

That's like, OK, well, all right. Then, you know, Munoz is seventh and there's Keles and then Alonso and then Foggia finishes out in the top 10. Right. So we get to race day and we're starting off with with the race. And it's 17 laps.

It's early in the morning and it seems cloudy. And it's like, but rain is not in the forecast for for the day. Right. It's basically been beautiful weather, but it's kind of cloudy. It's cooled off a little bit.

Well, all right. You know, that seems good racing weather. I mean, great for the spectators. Right. You get kind of cloud up the sun a little bit.

You enjoy life. Right. Cooked all day long. Yeah. Right.

So at the flash of the green. You had Rewaded rocketing off the line and from his pole position, followed by Peroni. And then Farrosado had a rocket start there. Kelso would work his way during the lap up to second and Munoz from third from seventh on the grid works his way up to be third by the time we get done with the first lap. So we'll rocket start by Munoz.

This looks going to be interesting. We got some players here at the beginning of all this to work with. Well, that didn't last long because Reweda winds up running wide and then he goes gets knocked down on the second lap back to third. Kelso goes to the lead, followed by Munoz. Then there's then Reweda is back in there.

So this is now weird that we got this. We got a bit of a fight on going, which is kind of nice here at the beginning. But it was just about here where it's Kelso, Munoz, Reweda and then Keles. He's had another great start to work his way up here three laps in. Then it's Farrosado and then Reweda starts to slide back to fifth.

But it also happens to coincide exactly when people started talking about drops of rain happening on the circuit. So it's like we do see that there are the white flags with the red cross on it being waved near like turn five, the turn nine area, turn ten area. It's like, OK, is it going to rain or is it not going to rain? The rain seems to be just a little bit of drops here and there, which again, you have to put that flag out for that. You have to warn the riders of those drops because potentially it could be a soap corner coming up from a microburst or something of that nature.

But it seemed like that seemed to like really like in my mind, is that what Reweda is seeing was the rain? And did he think that, OK, I need to just protect my championship and let's stay on two wheels because let's remind ourselves Moto3 guys, despite somewhere along the way, Peroni waving his hand that the race should be stopped every chance that he got, that's not in their power to stop the race. So only race direction can stop the Moto3 race and say, OK, now we're going to go change tires or whatever we're going to do to clear it wet, et cetera. Which I think I don't know how you feel about this, Rich. I think it's the riders that should be able to determine when that should happen, when the change is wrong, not race direction, because they're not on the circuit per se.

Right. I mean, they've got a lot of information about the circuit. But then I also get the fact that being those guys and being Moto3, everyone would be wanting to throw their hand up like near the end of a race just because they were leading. And you've got to kind of watch that. But if you got like a leader, your guy in third, fourth, fifth, throwing a hand up, I think you got to stop it there.

Oh, your thoughts? Yeah, I'm probably not quite as full on as you are on this one. I mean, I think, as you say, race direction have an awful lot of information coming in from lots of different sources. Obviously, each Marshall Post radio's in, you know, anything that's happening, including weather, obviously. I think if enough riders were to put their hands up, then these days you tend to get fairly swift action in terms of a red flag.

One guy in fifth doing it, I think probably was not enough to swing that particular one. But we do often joke and it's often said that Moto3 riders, you know, the youngsters as they are, they sort of lack imagination as to what could go wrong. So they're the least likely to be putting their hands up. It must be said. And you had, as you'll come to in a minute, a certain guy out front who took great advantage of this situation to build an unassailable lead.

So that told race direction something in of itself as well, because he was busy putting really fast laps in, whilst other people were perhaps just going a little bit on the cautious side. Rueda, you could understand why, although he's got so many points that he could potentially shed that you could argue he didn't really need to do that. So, yeah, I mean, we've seen often seen in MotoGP a lot of riders will start to wave their hands around and it's a different matter riding the MotoGP bike in sketchy conditions like that on slicks, must be said. So I think it's probably works pretty well, in my opinion. Prone was just pushing, pushing his luck a little bit there.

I don't quite understand at that stage why he was gesticulating like that, because I mean, there were your you could see the odd spot on the camera. It's true. But I don't know if it was really properly raining anywhere at any stage of the race. It was that kind of mental rain thing that happens, wasn't it? Yeah, it was that mental thing, which that was what I had caused because Keelys had made his way to the front.

As Rueda is going backwards, Keelys is going forwards, and then Keelys has a moment at five. And I'm like, well, was that because of the rain? Like, I don't know. Okay. Well, is that the warning sign that we're all looking for that we need to do something about this?

Nothing happened at that point. To pick up on your point, Jim, I think down at turn five, I think that is probably where the conditions were actually the worst. And if it was a little bit slippy in anywhere, it probably was about there. Because, again, listening to the people reporting from the pit lane, for the majority of that, what was it, six, seven laps when the flags were waving, they were kind of saying it wasn't raining in the pit lane and it didn't look wet out on the back straight. But certainly down in that sort of cutback area where they go back under the super speedway, it did look as if that was possibly where there was a bit of light drizzle.

So I think, yeah, probably if Keelys did have a little moment, it might have been a slight slip up on a bit of dampness. Yeah. Well, then Kelso had his own little moment because he went way wide at ten, which, again, that was another spot that sort of on the backside kind of where you were getting a little bit of rain. So potentially Kelso got caught out by that issue. Meanwhile, Forosado has moved his way up to third and then he winds up getting up to second.

But now it's raining harder because at that point the guys in the pit box said, hey, we could see the rain against our window. And their commentary box is sort of at the end of the pit lane and it's they're looking towards turn one. So it's kind of seemed like if you draw a line from ten to one, that was sort of the line that the rain was on. And it's like, OK, well, I don't know which way the wind and everything moves it around there on the mountainside. But you kind of think that, you know, it was just one of those things of just this little intermittent shower that was going on.

But while all that's going on, one Mr. Munoz now gets to the front on like about lap eight and he's leading Forosado, Peroni and Keelys, then Almanza and Yamanaka. Well, now it seemed like that was like the hardest part of the rain. And yet Munoz took the most advantage out of that time. He threw down a couple of laps that nobody wanted to touch.

And then within two laps, he had worked out to have a one point four second lead over everybody. The guys just got nerve or he just didn't care. He didn't care. It is like it's boom or bust. He was going to do it or to fall off the bike, try to fall off the bike trying.

You could never accuse Munoz of lacking bravery, sometimes misplaced, it must be said, although much better in recent races. But, yeah, he really kind of took his opportunity there. Sure, because two laps later, Bright Sunshine was now happening. So, you know, we're on lap 12 of a 17 lap race. There's only like five to go and sunshine's out everywhere.

And, you know, one point five almost one point six second lead by this point is a little hard to overcome. But, you know, Keelys wound up throwing down some quick laps like, OK, it's now dry or drying or better than what it was, let's say. And so Keelys is quick and he started to catch Peroni was ahead of him. And then Keelys got by that Peroni and then Picaris crashed in tenth. So it was still maybe greasy, slimy.

If you weren't online, if you missed it by a little bit, you were going to go down kind of a condition, which this kind of ruins the race. Right. I mean, we usually have those spectacular last lap races and this one didn't have it because Munoz was gone. But it does become slightly interesting towards the end because meanwhile Munoz is gone. Keelys is second and then it's Peroni, Fernandez, Rueda and Almanza.

But Rueda now turns the wick up with three laps to go. He's closing in and closing in fast on the guys that are ahead of him. He wound up being third with three laps to go. He became second with two laps to go. Almanza crashed.

I didn't see the crash. I'm not sure what happened to him. And on the last lap, Rueda actually winds up getting by Keelys at turn six. But then Keelys tried hard at eleven to get back by Rueda. But then Peroni, that didn't work out well and Keelys didn't have the drive.

So Peroni tried to take it at victory corner to get that last spot on the podium. But Keelys fought back and just held on to it to get that podium position. So that last couple of laps minus Munoz out front is fun. It's a good race there. But it turns out that you wind up with Munoz winning, Rueda second, then Keelys, Peroni, Fernandez, Yamanaka, Pini, Kelso slid back to eighth, Luneta, Foggia, Picaris, Bertelli, Rollstone, Carpe and NEPA scoring the last point in the race.

With that, we look at the championship standings. Well, now you have Rueda on 315. Picaris didn't do himself any favors and he's now 93 points back. So it is match point in Mandelica for Rueda. He can clinch the title.

There's a lot of permutations that have to happen for that whole scenario. But it is mathematically possible for Rueda to clinch in Mandelica. Keelys is third. He's on 204 points, which is only 18 back of Picaris. Keelys, remember, has missed four races, two because of his age, two because of injury.

This kid, I think he's got to be the odds on favorite for a Moto3 title next year, I would think. But I don't know. Yeah, well, I mean, he's certainly one of the guys we'll be picking when it comes to next, what, March, April time. When does MotoGP start next year? Probably starts in January, doesn't it?

With the number of bloody races they have nowadays. But yeah, we'll probably have him as the number one pick for the title next year. Yeah, I think it's the last weekend of April that it's going to start and you'll be in Thailand. And then you go from Thailand to the United States and then over to Qatar, I think. Anyway, after Keelys is Munoz, who's now on 197, which puts him only seven points behind Keelys for third.

So Munoz's victory did him a lot of good. Then it's Carpe, Kelso, Fernandez, Peroni, Yamanaka for Rosado finish out your top ten. What else do we need to say about Moto3, Rich? Well, I thought you slightly underplayed Picaris Krashin because let's not forget he's second in the championship. So he threw away a massive number of points there.

And how's handed is you've just identified Jim Matchpoint to Rueda this coming weekend in Indonesia. So it was a big mistake. I mean, again, I'm not denying that the track was a bit damp and possibly it did rain a bit more than I'm recollecting now. I'm looking at my notes. But equally, Moto3 bikes don't have a huge amount of grip in terms of tire patch and stuff.

And, you know, Matej is that kind of all kind of slow corners, but heavy braking. So if you're going to have crashes and stuff, that is the sort of track on a Moto3 bike, which is going to encourage it. I would argue. I mean, Munoz was and we haven't had the cause to say this terribly regularly, but he was sort of outstanding, wasn't he? You tend to forget because of his propensity to make completely boneheaded moves.

Admittedly, he seems to have settled down massively in the second half of the season. I think Peter Ertel, who's the team boss in that squad, has really done wonders for Munoz's sort of mental approach to racing. But he is quite a seasoned campaigner compared to many in the category. Now, let's not forget, he's been around quite a while, David Munoz. So he should have been doing this sort of race a bit more often.

So it's good to see that he's actually starting to come good. And again, for the last several races, he's been kind of in that top 10, top 5 position in the pack. And in the past, we'd have been watching through, again, through the old kind of split fingers, wouldn't we? Just thinking, oh my God, who's he who's about to smash out of the way? And we haven't really seen that.

And he's kind of managed the race really well. So that, again, bodes well because I'm guessing he'll stay in Moto3 next year. Rueda and Picaras, let's not forget, are now definitely confirmed to be going up to Moto2. So it is going to, as we often see, clear out the category a little bit, which is why Quilos will be such a hot favourite for me. But there will be others in there.

Other than that, the only other thing I thought was a little bit notable was a bit of friendly fire between the Leopard boys. Fernandez putting some moves on Armandza, which I suspect the team were not mightily impressed with. But Fernandez is riding for a new contract somewhere else by the sounds of it. So, you know, the gloves are off there. Whereas I think Armandza is, although not officially confirmed, I think it looks like he's staying in that squad next year.

I think his teammate will be, I'm not too sure. But there's a little bit on the line in some of these sort of races as we go towards the end of the season now in terms of contractual position for a lot of these riders. So it does kind of spice it up a bit more or add a bit more kind of needle into the equation. So, but overall, yeah, that sort of semi range hour or range hour, whichever it was, kind of spoiled the race really, because suddenly there were big gaps all over the place, weren't there Jim? And it kind of we didn't get that kind of classic build up to a final last lap.

Big dust up, which we normally see and enjoy and has in general been very entertaining this year. It hasn't resulted in big crashes and stuff. So, yeah. I mean, Motegi is a take it or leave it. We had this discussion a while ago.

Take it or leave it track as well as I'm concerned tends not to result in great racing historically. I think unless I'm misremembering some absolute stone cold classics, but I don't think any of the races could be described as that, you know, this weekend just gone. So, yeah, nothing much more to say on it really. But a championship ride from Rurayda again. I mean, he's just knocking it out of the park.

Yeah, I think the only one at Motegi that I think was like a really kind of a great race. I think this is going to be 2018 because it was Marquez versus. Oh, gosh, I just blanked out who was riding the Ducati back then against their Divisioso. Divisioso left the door open at victory corner on the last lap and Marquez snuck through for the win, which was, you know, that's probably like the best race that's happened there. But anyway, that was a long time ago.

Yeah, they're few and far between. I think they are. Let's look at Moto2 and that first qualifying session with Slack, Lopez, Alonso, Cornice to that, Baltis, which is kind of odd, then Kinet. We've seen this before, but OK. Then it was Ramirez and Aegis.

Now, I kind of really thought that this was a really good qualifying session. I thought Moto2 actually was brought some serious excitement into qualifying, which is usually not what happens per se. But halfway through that first session, Slatch, Alonso, Ramirez and Lopez are going to go through. What it all went out, Alonso had an absolutely great run. I think he actually got close to the track record for a Moto2 bike, which was saying something because Alonso doesn't seem to work on brand new tires.

Older tires work for him and he does better. So I'm like, oh, this is kind of interesting. So then Baltis, Lopez, Slatch all get through. So that's who went through there. Now, the second qualifying session, we don't have Kinet.

Kinet has not got it. I mean, he's had the worst qualifying session he's had in a long time. Because I mean, how many times have we seen Kinet be in that second in that first session? And he can't make it happen. And he bolts on a new tire, sucks it up and somehow wills that bike into the second qualifying session.

He did not accomplish that, which that's Gonzalez is thinking like, wow, this is like my dream come true. Then the guy that I'm kind of chasing me for the title isn't there. Or at least one of the guys that's chasing me for the title isn't going to be in this session. So what was going to happen in this session? So all right, we had that.

So we get started in this one and Gonzalez just jumps right out there, man. And he just throws down a qualifying lap that was just wicked fast from it. But the problem was he left the pit lane too soon. The light was on when he did it. I didn't see any of this.

Oh, he did. So it was, you know, they're all trotting down the pit lane and everybody sort of stops and just Gonzalez just blows right past everybody. And all of a sudden he just he looks around and realizes, oh, I've well, OK, what am I going to do now? He looks back. The light turns green.

He just keeps going. And as everybody on the on the adorn a fee was saying, hey, if you jump that your first every lap of the first run that you make in that session are gone. They're wiped off the board. So he should have just simply gone back into the pits immediately and then started his second run started, quote unquote, his second run. You need to know your eggs, though, right?

No, to do that, don't you? I suppose. Right. Agreed. And I'm not saying that that Gonzalez needs to know that the team should know that because Gonzalez is just throwing down laps.

And I'm like, if he throws his bike away, if he crashes, he's not going to get a good qualifying start. You're the guy that you know, can't isn't here. Like, why isn't there a board out this is box, box, box or something? You know, it just didn't make any sense at that point at all. But, you know, so latch went down at turn 10.

Alonzo then cracked the track record. He went to provisional pole, which was shocking because Alonzo again doesn't qualify a Moto3 bike well. Well, I'm like, you know, attempting here. Eventually, Gonzalez now comes in and pits everything that he did is all wiped off. He's got nothing.

They put a new they put a new tire on and they're getting ready to go. Now, Sasaki was also down. So halfway along, says on pole, right? Gonzalez is second, but technically his is going to get wiped off the board. They just haven't done it yet.

Then Sasaki, Holgado, Marrera and Guevara. Dixon's Dixon goes to third with 317 left to play in this one. Then Gonzalez goes to pole. Dixon still third. Dixon's third.

Then Holgado jumps up to third. But Gonzalez would wind up being on pole. Holgado was second. Alonzo hangs on to third. So that's his first front row start.

And I'm like, oh, there's the two guy, the two teammates side by side. This could be some fireworks between these two because Alonzo got to that victory first because they're both rookies, right? They're both rookies to the class. And Alonzo got to that victory first. Then Holgado got one and then Holgado got another one.

You know, it's like, oh, Alonzo is not going to like that because he's not going to be, you know, the star of the show per se. Right. So I was going to see what was going to happen. The second row would be Vietti, Marrera, Dixon. You know, Jake just couldn't put a lap in that was faster and he was caught on the door of a feed sitting with his mechanic going, I don't know what that happened because the bike wasn't what I expected it to be.

We've cut away from that because from the colorful language and whatnot. But that was interesting that Dixon was that far back. But then it's Baltus, Sasaki, and Vier and then Guevara's in the top 10. Arbolino with the arm pump surgery having just got off that was 11. So, you know, a little interesting where he was.

Just quick one to say, because Dixon, I did watch some of the Friday coverage, not live. I wasn't that dedicated to get up completely through the middle of the night on a Friday morning. But Dixon was really quick on, I think he was quickest in both Friday sessions. So, yeah, his sort of slight and I do mean slight downturn performance, I was a little bit curious. But I'm really sorry to have missed the Moto2 Q2 session.

It wasn't for want of trying. TNT Sports, which is effectively taken over what was the Eurosport app on the TV kind of app side of things. That was, how shall I put this delicately, almost certainly one of the worst pieces of software ever developed in mankind. The old Eurosport app. TNT sort of inherited it and it's been pretty awful really.

They've updated it as of this weekend just gone. So it is much better, but they were obviously having a few glitches because the Q2 session for Moto2 was nowhere to be found. Q1 was on there, but Q2, no, just wasn't there. It might be now perhaps, but because I did tweet about this because it took them several hours to put the Moto3 race up as well, which was starting to irritate me rather as a paying subscriber. So hands up, I didn't see Q2, but it wasn't for want of trying on my part and from what you've described.

And I think the Gonzales thing, I think he was relieved of about 2000 Euros as a result of going through that red light. I think I read or heard somewhere, which I'm sure is perfectly affordable. But maybe it wasn't as much as that, but it was, you did get a sort of hefty-ish fine anyway. So I'd love to know where that money goes to, whether that goes into some sort of charitable good cause pot. Doesn't it go to riders for all?

Quite possibly. I hope it does. I hope it doesn't go into the Espeleta pension fund. Yeah, I don't want it in there either. Anyway.

Oh, we get to the race now. So got 19 laps for Moto2. And at the beginning, Gonzales has a bad start. I don't know what happened. It didn't really, it just didn't go.

It just bogged down, didn't it? Which was odd. And I thought, well, maybe he had the pit speed limiter on or something. I don't know what he did, but it wasn't good. I think he just fluffed his lines a little bit, Jim, because I know there are electronics on the Moto2 bikes, but they're clearly nothing like launch control systems on the MotoGP bikes.

So I think he just kind of dragged it a little bit off the line. I think I can only assume that that's what happened. I agree. I don't know what happened, but he definitely just fluffed it for sure. Well, Vietti wound up with a great start, right?

Because Vietti is coming from fourth. So he sneaks through. I mean, he split through Gonzales in Elgardo, right? And he's going through the hole there. And then Vietti is in too hot.

So he pushes Gonzales wide and they're both sort of out of the very edge of the track. Now, Gonzales is now going backwards at a rapid rate because basically he almost had to stop, stand the bike up. And Vietti did kind of finish the corner, but it's the gravel trap or stand it up and stay on the pavement. Which way are you going to go? I would think I'd want to stand it up too and try to get back going again as soon as I could.

So that meant that Moreira led with Elgardo second and Alonso maintaining third there. Gonzales was drifted back to ninth. Vietti went back to tenth because I think Gonzales, by the time I had caught up to all the action, I think Vietti had kind of, Gonzales has kind of gotten by Vietti at the time. But then Munoz was down at turn five in a wicked little high side like underneath the bridge. Well, where is it going to be wet at?

Well, under the bridge where you go out of the racetrack. I mean, I kind of wish Honda would just simply just demolish the oval part of it and sort of redo a piece of the road course to make it a nicer road course, maybe perhaps. Although I doubt that will ever truly happen, but we can all dream and hope. Anyway, by the time I think we finally got around to complete a lap, it was Moreira, Holgardo, Alonso, Dixon, and then Arbolino and Guevara. On lap two, Holgardo was by Moreira and then Arbolino got by Alonso and Dixon got by Alonso.

So Alonso is now going backwards. So I'm thinking, OK, whatever you guys did to be able to make him qualify on the front row was the wrong setup because it doesn't work for him when he starts the race. Because all the kid did was go backwards. I was like, well, you know, he may have been trying to be a little patient there. Again, there was that rain that happened in the Moto3 race, so maybe he thought the track might have been a little damp and he was just being patient, letting things come to temperature.

And I thought, well, OK, maybe he'll wind up racing back up to the front. Right. At least that's what I thought was going to happen. I do wonder, Jim, I still hold to the fact that I think David Alonso is very young and I think he needs a bit more physical growth to be able to really get the best out of a bike, particularly on full tanks and on fresh rubber. You know, he did put in a good qualifying lap in the end, but you pointed out a little while back that he typically has struggled to find a single lap.

And I think that's a bit of a sort of a reflection of his and I mean, in all due respect, his relative lack of physical conditioning for the Moto2 bike, by which I mean his strength and bulk. You know, I've said many, many times, I think this is where the Holgado has proven such an effective rider because he's small, but he's very stocky and strong. And so he can clearly muscle the bike and he's learnt to ride the bike. I mean, as you said, they are both rookies, let's not forget, and they both had at different times really good seasons. But the Holgado is proving much against our expectation, it has to be said, to be the more effective of the two.

And I think that's probably largely down to physical preparations, wrong words. It implies that Alonso sat around drinking beer and smoking fags. Clearly, clearly he's not doing that. But he is a very, very small young kid, you know, and so it's going to take him a year or two of further sort of physical growth and development and bulking up to get to that same level, I think. So I wonder whether that's part of it.

Yeah, I think Holgado is 20 and I think Alonso has just recently turned 19. Yeah, that sounds about right because Holgado was in Moto3 for a year or two more, certainly. I saw him, when was I in Qatar? I can't remember now, it doesn't matter, but it was probably three years ago now. I guess Holgado would have been in his first or second season of Moto3 and he walked past me a couple of times in an interview.

But I remember thinking at the time, blimey, he looks like a boxer, you know, like one of these, not a lightweight, sort of like a middleweight boxer almost. Yeah, really very sort of physically developed even at that stage. So I'm sure that's gone on several steps now since then, now that he's into Moto2. It doesn't surprise me that he's managing the bike more than the bike is overwhelming him sort of thing. And I think that's maybe Alonso's problem a little bit at the moment.

I don't disagree with you. Now Aegis goes down at turn three and then we get a Vietti-Gonzalez battle. Vietti gets by Gonzalez at turn nine, then Gonzalez comes back by at turn 10 and Vietti hits the ground. Now the only angle of this that we get to see is from the inside of the track, watching Gonzalez go up the inside. And he is clearly ahead of Vietti.

No question about this. And Vietti is touched by the back half of Gonzalez's bike. And Vietti goes down, goes into the gravel trap. And then this is under investigation. Now after the investigation concludes, Simon Krayfar dictates that, hey, long lap penalty is required by Gonzalez for irresponsible riding.

I'm sorry. This one, no, I cannot agree with Simon Krayfar on this one. You missed this one, Simon. I'm sorry. That's racing.

That is racing. If you decide that what we saw is not racing and is a punishable offense by a long lap, then in my opinion we are going to have some tough times ahead of us. Because that's what you want to see is two people battling it out, one brake later than the other. The other guy is clearly ahead and they both turn in wanting to occupy the same race, the same asphalt. It just is not going to happen.

People are going to touch and sometimes that touch is just awkward enough for you to lose, especially on the brakes, to lose the front and down you go. I'm sorry. I do not like the call at all, Rich. You? I'm going to totally disagree with you on this one.

I thought he was lucky not to get a double long lap penalty and I wouldn't have objected if he did. For me, I don't think he was past him. I thought he rammed into Vietti. He wasn't going to make the corner. As far as I can recall, Jim, and I would need to go back and double check that I'm not misremembering this because I'm always happy to be proven wrong and stuff in terms of my recollection.

But as far as I can recall, he went steaming up the inside from miles back and took Vietti's right handlebar out. And that's why Vietti went down. So as far as I'm concerned, he was lucky to get away with a single long lap. But I mean, however, I will say, like you, you could have, I mean, a few years ago, that would have just been racing. You know, we saw Rossi and all sorts of people doing moves like that.

You know, Rossi and Stoner at the top of the corkscrew springs to mind. I mean, it's considered a classic moment nowadays. That'd be a double long penalty, wouldn't it? Or a sort of start at the back of the grid next time, you naughty boy. So, yeah, I mean, perspectives change.

I thought it was a very hard move and I thought you misjudged it personally. In fact, what I wrote in my notes was, because again, although I would need to go back and double check, but just rewinding to the very start of the race. Whereas you said Vietti went steaming down a very small gap, it must be said, did overcook it a little bit. But I'm pretty sure Vietti got knocked a bit wide and that's what sent Gonzalez wide. Now Gonzalez wouldn't have known that.

And I almost felt as if it was a perhaps a little bit of a red mist moment from Gonzalez. Not a revenge thing, because I don't think that's the sort of rider that Gonzalez is. In fact, he's not like that. I think he gets involved in very little shenanigans on track. Although it must be said he did a silly move at Silverstone where he went steaming up the inside and took somebody out.

I can't remember who it was. Was it Baltus? Anyway, doesn't matter. So, yeah, I just see that completely differently to you on this occasion, which is rare because normally we are fully aligned on these things. But it's nice to have a little disagreement once in a while.

Yeah, I'm going to stick with my view. But there's only one way for this to be settled and that is the fans need to ride in and tell us who is right. What do other people's, what's other people's opinion? How do they see it? Because, I mean, clearly we see this one completely differently.

Yep. So we'll let everybody decide. Motopodcast.com. Tell us what you think should have been the penalty if the penalty was deserved because some people said drop a position was also on the table. I think that was Simon Patterson who said who said that in a thread or something.

I think I can't not 100 percent. But it was one of the journalists who said it. I said, like, well, perhaps maybe he should have been told to drop a position. So, yeah, I mean, just to conclude this one, Jim, I, you know, I submit to the fact that there must be penalties in racing at a certain level. I mean, if you go back to the 80s and 90s, I don't think anybody ever got penalized for anything at all.

So clearly that's not right. We under Freddie Spencer's watch, we went way to kind of nanny state. And I think we've commended Simon and his team in the stewards panel. This is a stewards panel. The stewards, not race directors, yeah, the stewards in nine times out of 10 getting calls right, if not 10 out of 10.

So, yeah, I think it's probably just about at the right level at the moment. But it's interesting that we disagree on this one. But again, it's a matter of perspective and. Yeah, be interested to know what other people think. All right.

So once we got past that part, Goulvaro was trying to make a move on Alonzo, but he went down at turn five again. We're getting to where the bridge is, right? Roberts goes down. He went down at turn five too. But that happened like a lap later, so I'm not sure what happened there.

He had what appeared to be more of a vicious high side that flung him to the ground under the bridge there. So whether that was done by any remaining residual water or anything was your guess. Or let's not forget, because a lot of these crashes were under the bridge. Yeah, where it's obviously the track is cooler. So whether that has a little effect as well.

I mean, that plus perhaps a little bit of dampness lingering in the shade. Because there are a couple of weird crashes going under the bridge, weren't there? In fact, one rider, I think it might have been Joe Roberts, actually, he kind of got flung to the inside, didn't he? Which was a kind of a clearly a nasty high side and quite unusual there. So there was something funny going on on that particular piece of track.

Yep. So Gonzalez gets the long lap for the Vieti crash. Dixon is by Marrero and he's now fourth. So it's Holgardo Arbolino, who had worked his way to second, which I failed to mention. Then Dixon, Marrero, Alonzo and Balthus.

Well, Gonzalez gets through the lap and he falls to ninth. So Marrero is fourth and Canetta is 16th. So the guys that are battling for this championship, this is where they're settled at. Now, Dixon gets by Arbolino and Arbolino is trying to like almost high sides himself at the last turn. He just caught that thing as he went across and went back.

It was weird. But then after that, we kind of see Arbolino trying to like move his right arm around his elbow up. And it's not the classic riding position. Apparently, he's starting to get numb or there was something fatigue coming because he had the carpal tunnel surgery, which if you ever looked that one up, folks don't because it's absolutely hideous to think what they actually do. It's very gross.

But hey, if it works to keep you from having the arm pump problem, then by all means. Right. So let's see. So Arbolino is now there and he's starting to fall back. So about four laps to go.

It's Alonzo. It's Alonzo will get by Arbolino as Arbolino starts to go backwards more now. And then Gonzalez, the question is, can Gonzalez get past Arbolino? Well, Gonzalez is trying really hard and he does get by Baltis. Then with two laps to go, Gonzalez gets by Arbolino.

So he does get that there. Alonzo is all over Marrera as we head to the final lap because Marrera is struggling for some reason. I don't know if it was just a tire issue or what he had going on. But. Holgardo wins.

And again, Holgardo had pulled away here. He had nobody in the same class that he was. Dixon hung on for second and it was a good fighting second, I would like to say. Then it was Marrera and then closely followed by Alonzo. Gonzalez would grab fifth place.

Arbolino with a great sixth after arm pump surgery, which golf clap right there. So you have way more than I got ever had. And clearly in a lot of discomfort through the second half of the race to boot as well. So given all of that, that finish compared to what he's been doing most of the season was a sterling effort. Outstanding, quite honestly.

Baltis would get seventh, Ortola's eighth, Aranis's ninth, Vier tenth. Then it's Lopez, Romero, Silac, Sasaki and Kinnett did salvage one point out of all of this. If we look at the championship, Gonzalez is on 238 points. Marrera is on 204. He's 34 behind, so there's no match point anywhere in this one at all.

This one's going to the end for sure. Kinnett slips the third in the championship. He's on 189 points. He is now 49 points behind Gonzalez and he's only 15 behind Marrera. Then it's Baltis Dixon, Holgardo with these couple of wins that he's put together has vaulted himself up to sixth.

Then it's Vietti, Aranis, Aegis and Antju is still magically in tenth. I would have thought for sure Holgardo, or not Holgardo, Alonso would have been in the top ten by now on points. But again, those early races and problems that he had has not done his cause well at all. So not the greatest Moto2 race, but it did have some intrigue with the championship contenders, Rich. Yeah, nothing more to say really, Jim.

Shame for Jake Dixon. He was pretty tough on himself as he always is actually in the part 3 interview. He said you had the bike, you should have won the race, but he got bogged down a bit at the start. Took too long to get into second and by that stage, as you just said, Holgardo was managing the gap way up the road. So yeah, great ride from Holgardo again.

Let's move to MotoGP. Yep. Where a title was decided. As we started in on Saturday, it was all about Mark Marquez. What did he take the title here in Japan?

The simple math was he needed to outscore Alex by three points by the end of the weekend. All you got to do is score three more points than Alex does. Whatever Alex's total is, score three more points. Alex's mission is to basically finish ahead of his brother as best he can. So simple math there.

So in the first qualifying session, we had Martine. We had Aldegar. We had Alex Marquez, who's again not having the best of time here of late. Then Miller and Bender and Bastianini. So the KTMs are not doing really great, but the one KTM with Acosta is kind of doing great.

So take that for what it's worth. Halfway through, Aguro was the fastest guy, followed by Morbidele than Alex Marquez. Then all the focus is on Alex. You don't get to see anybody else. I kind of hate this when we get to these championship battles.

Just focus on one thing. There's other racing going on. I'd like to see that too. But Bender crashes. Renz is at 10, and he's got to crash.

Then Aguro is trying to go through there. So it's all sort of messed up. The only people who get out of it all because of the crashes and the yellow flags and all that stuff is Morbidele gets through, and so does Alex. So by the slightest of margins, Alex keeps this kind of alive as they head into the second qualifying session. One of the people who was not in that first qualifying session, I felt, was Peco Benyaya.

Now Peco was fast all weekend. I know you and I want to talk about that, but we're going to do that after the race. So just know Peco has been fast all weekend. And it was like, well, what's going to happen when we go into the Q2 here? Well, Acosta's got a bike problem.

It's like it doesn't want to go fast or something. I thought that maybe perhaps the pit speed limiter was stuck on because you could see him whacking the right side of the handlebar. And I'm assuming that's where the pit speed limiter is. It could be. It could be.

Don't know. I would probably want it there as opposed to anywhere else. I mean, maybe then again, it might be better on the left hand side of the handlebar. So that was my first thought. Other people suggested that it was a ride height issue, but I'm like, no, I don't think it's a ride height because I know the ride height is definitely on the left hand side of the handlebar.

So that didn't explain him beating on the right hand side. Eventually it turned out there was something wrong with the throttle. And so I'm thinking, OK, if it was an old school cable, you could bash it and probably get it to work. But they're all fly by wire as far as I know. Still, it was electronics, wasn't it?

Some some kind of rambling in the system. Yeah, you're never going to figure that one out or whatever. But it did. It did create all kinds of of weirdness. Now, after the first qualifying lap, Mark was the fastest, Ben Yaya's second quick, Bez was right there again.

I mean, Bez is kind of like my rider of the year almost because he's the forgotten rider of the year, I guess is the better way to say it, because Bez has done amazing things on the Supriya. You know, he has and there's no way around it to say that he's done amazing on that thing. I would also say, though, Jim, Apprelia have done brilliantly with the Apprelia as well. Sure. They haven't probably had a problem.

They have transformed that bike into an all rounder, which it wasn't before. Bez has made very good use of it. 100% agree. They've taken a bike that was good at one or two circuits. You remember when Alash was the only person who could do anything and it was only at Aragon?

And then it was Aragon and then Catalonia. And then it was Aragon, Catalonia and Silverstone. Then they added Assen to it and it just they've kept growing as they have. And I think it's great. I mean, it's great for the sport that they're competitive and that they're right there being the little factory that they are, you know, for them to keep going like they are, knowing that they got a big change in rules for the next couple years, in the next couple years.

That, you know, it's kind of surprising to me. What was interesting in the second session here is that everyone was fast, like everyone was throwing down red helmets or whatever. And then, you know, it was like all of a sudden one mirror is on pole. He's the fastest guy on a Honda. Did anybody have that on the bingo card?

Like I didn't. I was like, holy crap. You know? Yeah. But OK.

Calm down. I would rip by going to pole. Right. And then I'm like, well, Acosta was coming. So but Acosta lost time, I think, in the last sector.

But, you know, because he waited all the time. He waited to get his primary bike. Read fixed. I should say. Right.

So he Acosta has sat for almost the entire session. He got out with just enough time to basically put in one run. And then he went on near to a pole with it, which was pretty damn amazing, to be honest, from Acosta. Now, I heard that he wanted the primary bike because the primary bike had a different set of forks than the second bike. And he prefers these alternate forks.

And there is apparently for whatever reason, there's only like a set of them and they're on his primary bike. I'm like, OK. The fact that KTM owns white power, you think that there's a problem with their supply chain or their monies? That's why they can't get a second set? Who knows?

I don't know what the difference between the forks are. My guessing is it's my guess is that it's either they flex more, which Acosta wants that feel, because when they flex a little bit, you tend to get more feel and feedback. Or they're the other way. He wanted them more rigid than what they have. But my guess is I would probably want them to be a little less rigid.

So but again, it's mere speculation by myself. So we're qualifying over its Benya on pole. Mir is in the middle of the second row on a Honda. And quite honestly, that's amazing. Marquez did salvage the front row with a third.

Acosta, having lost all the time in the last sector, got to fourth. Quattroraro with the Yamaha's fifth. Then it was Morbidelli. And then Luca Marini is on this just missed the second row with another Honda. It's like, whoa, the two factory Honda suddenly showed up to play.

And this was so out of character for what had happened with one mirror. But his riding was impeccable. The bike looked really good. And as we said early on with Marrera still not confirmed, but potentially going to LCR, it might be a master stroke because Honda may have. May have a great bike next year for the last year of this iteration of bike.

But it does look it does look promising for right now. The curious thing in all of this is actually the weird downturn informed from Jarns Zalka actually, isn't it? I mean, the two HRC guys who I think, you know, I don't think we get into too much trouble. None of us had really sort of high expectations for many of the Hondas this year and probably not for Marini. And I think given what a crash stream sort of couple of years Mir has had on the Honda, I think most people felt he was kind of broken mentally.

Just goes to show, as we will talk about in a moment, it doesn't take much for these guys to bounce back. Give them a bike they can work with and they're there, you know, straight away. And we've seen both Marini and Mir putting in some very good performances of late. But they, you know, things really aim good, particularly for Jarn Mir who I'm not just saying this because he's I've always rated Jarn Mir. I think he's kind of given a bit of a rough time over, you know, the championship that he won.

You know, he won that fair and square. I mean, yes, Mark Marquez sort of knocked himself into pieces, but you can't win championships by knocking yourself into pieces. So, you know, Mir took it and he is a very good rider. And when he joined Honda, if you recall, most people were predicting at that point that he would do really well on the Honda because it was such a front endy bike. It's just he had no feel.

And so he kept crashing on the front end because that's the way he runs now. Clearly, he's got the feel there. And so you can see great things coming next year. In a way, it's a shame that the rules are going to change. I mean, as much as I'm looking forward to getting rid of ride height devices, you know, some curtailment of aero, although it's not going away.

But, you know, next year, the risk of sounding like Mr. Darlington could well be the best abs because you've got so many factories coming good. And Ducati, arguably having made a bit of a miscalculation possible this year or just having kind of created the apex predator of a bike last year, they just can't really improve it. And so everybody else is just catching up and they can't keep that momentum of going forward and keeping the gap. I think that's probably what's happening.

So next year will be really good. And I, for one, will be cheering from the rafters if Marini Amir addition it out week in, week out on the Honda because we really want that. And again, it goes to this thing from Neil Spaulding, a Honda could win the championship next year. Starting to look less like a crazy idea as each race goes by. I mean, it's still pretty crazy, but not as crazy as it sounded when he said it.

It's only 80% crazy. It was 100% crazy. 80% crazy. Let's see what percentage crazy is when we get to Valencia. Agreed.

So to finish up qualifying here after Marini is Alex. So Alex qualifies eight. This is in ninth, which, you know, it's like, well, OK, that was just something happened there. He just couldn't get the track or whatever. Then Fernandez, Zarko, the other Honda again, you know, Zarko seems to do really good on a bike that isn't good.

And then when he gets a good bike, he can't do good on it. Like, it just seems backwards to me. But hey, it's odd. But then did you Antonio there at 12? All right.

So now let's go get to the sprint. Right. So we go to start the sprint action. And basically they start off, they head down to the first turn. Now, Jorge Martin got a killer start from his position.

Right. He's flying up the inside and in what I can only say is a boneheaded move, sort of forgot to break. And he he broke extremely late. He had the back end of the bike in the air. It's going every which direction.

He's not going to be able to stop. And in fact, he winds up plowing into his teammate Bez and he market or sorry, Mark teen just face plants viciously into his teammates bike. And then they skitter off into the kitty there. Now, Martin thought, thankfully, was quickly up. But as soon as he got up, he was on to that collarbone.

He's the arm doesn't work like he expected to. And you kind of like, ooh, is that a collarbone issue? Yep. Sure was. And so he was off as off on his way to go back and basically get surgery to be able to correct it.

Now, given that there's not a whole lot left in the year, I think you should just take it all off rich, don't you think? Given how much he's beaten himself up and this has got to be playing on him mentally a fair bit too. Which is possibly part of the reason why I kind of had a bit of a crazy accident like that in the first place. I mean, I'm not in any position to criticize and it was kind of like right up the curb on the inside there and just completely missed the breaking marker was on the wrong line anyway. It was a kind of, yeah, sort of a sort of crash outcome, wasn't it, really?

And I have to say I was really fearful for Buzeki because when he went into the gravel, I thought he'd broken his leg because his limbs were making. He's got long legs anyway, Buzeki for a GP rider, but his legs were making all sorts of unpleasant looking shapes. I was very relieved when I saw him up on his feet again reasonably quickly. And although Buzeki has a reputation of being a bit surly where the media are concerned, a little bit sort of unpredictable, which I quite like in a way, it's a bit sort of rock star. He was not sort of remonstrating with Martin, which a lot of riders would have done, you know, because he could see straight away that Martin was more injured than he was.

And so he was quite sort of magnanimous about the whole incident because he had good reason to feel pretty aggrieved. And as I say, he was lucky not to be seriously injured because it was a big crash. So, yeah, just goes from bad to worse, doesn't it, for Jorge Martín. And interestingly, Massimo Rivola, the team boss, who has been very much the politician, as is his job, and has sort of played a bit of a blinder really with Martin. If you think about all that contractual shenanigans that was going on through the summer, I think there were hints that his patience is kind of starting to wear a little bit thin.

Or he let sort of the politician bit of him slip a little bit. I think it was a little bit kind of like that was a stupid mistake to make for a guy that's coming back from injury, needs time on the bike, isn't being pressured by the team to go out and get on podiums, just get some miles under your belt and he does that. You know, again, it's not criticism because these things happen in a split second, but yeah, not good, not good at all. Nope. Acosta would get by Mir on the second lap.

Then he immediately got a track limits warning. By the fifth lap, it was Benyaya who was basically riding away from Acosta, then Mir, then Marquez, then Morbidelli and Qualtereau. Benyaya looked great. I mean, Benyaya looked like an old self-confident on the front end, deep on the brakes. Everything looked great.

Mir even looked great. I thought Mir looked great. I'm like, man, this guy's riding in a great race. You know, there's all these other problems and stuff that there could be. You know, it's just you know, what the heck's going on?

You know, this is just amazing. You know, we're eight laps into it and everything was still the same. But with five to go, Mark just throws down a block pass on Mir. He had tried several times to get by Mir in turn five, turn three. He tried, he tried, he tried.

Couldn't do it, right? Finally, he threw a block pass on him, got that done. I mean, he pushed him wide, but Mir saw him coming, picked it up. They both go through or whatever. And, you know, what else can you say?

With three to go, the question was, could Mark actually get by Acosta? Now, Mark did get by Acosta at ten, but he wasn't it wasn't enough as Acosta would as in Acosta would then struggle to stay on to the podium because the bike was losing its pace as they went through the final part of it. He that soft tire was not working for him on that sprint conditions. So Benya wins a sprint, looks great doing it. Marquez is second for nine points.

Acosta was third and getting seven points. Then Mir takes a fourth. Great ride there, right? Morbidele, Quattraro, Marini, Fernandez, Ayagura takes the last point. Alex scores none.

So as it goes, you got to have three more points than your brother. You did pretty good because you took nine to your brother taking none. So that's how we finished off the sprint race. So there's not much we can say more about that. Now we can get into Sunday.

So basically now all Mark needs is seven points more than Alex and it's pretty much over at this point. So again, many different permutations that could be used to get through here. But we start off Benya, then Acosta right behind him, Mark Gates out in third. Quattraro was in the mix. Then Mir was wide at turn one.

Benya after the first lap had seven tenths of a second on Acosta. That is old school Benya form right there, folks, for sure. Now Quattraro is going backwards. He made a mistake at turn five. Bez was on the march.

He's by Morbidele. He's gone to fifth. I'm sure he was beaten up and banged and bruised, but he still was getting on with the program. By lap five, Benya has got one and point two seconds on Acosta, who is being followed closely by Mark and then Mir, then Bez and Morbidele. I mean, by lap nine here, Benya is long gone.

There was nobody who was going to touch Benya at this point. He already had two point one seconds of a lead. And that's kind of where we are now. Mark does finally get by Acosta on lap 11. He is he's into that second position.

But I'm not too sure that Mark would really had anything that he could do with anybody else. Acosta was falling into the clutches of Mir and Bezeki. Mir would go by Acosta as well. He did that as a pass going into sixth. Acosta was in trouble like that bike wasn't working on the medium tire like they thought it was going to.

It just seemed like he had no grip at the back. But we get to lap 15 of the of the race and of the 24 lap race. So we got seven laps to go and suddenly smoke appears out of Benya's bike. Now, at first, I thought it maybe it was a little bit of tire smoke, which didn't look blue enough. It looked more white ish to me in color.

It only happened like sort of once. So, OK, well, what's going on here? Hold on. Hang on. But then you could clearly see it was coming out of the lower exhaust, which I believe is the front bank of the Ducati.

I think the pipe up the rear is from the back cylinders. I'm going to go with that anyway. So it's like, OK, what's going on here? And it's like, what is, you know, here's Mark. You know, I'm assuming he's close enough to Benya that like he's got can see smoke or is getting maybe a little oil on his visor or whatever.

And everybody sort of think that like Benya's bike was going to give the ghost or he was going to get black flagged or something like that because of the mechanical and all that. And I'm like, it's coming out of the exhaust, which means the bike is pretty much burning the oil. The question is, why is it burning the oil? My initial thought was that perhaps maybe they because it's a fuel thirsty circuit and one of the ways you can save fuel is to run the bike lean. So I thought maybe Ducati had it just a little bit too lean for the cooler conditions of the day.

And perhaps they leaned it out a little bit and it stuck a ring in one of the front cylinders, just one cylinder stuck momentarily. It's scuffed it. It's started. Now we're getting blow by because it started to get a little bit worse. But I think that is exactly the explanation that Michael Laverty gave Jim just to enforce your point.

Yeah. Running it lean, changing the viscosity of the oil, getting a bit of seepage through the rings. Yep. Yeah. They seeped it through the rings and it was like that bike is I think Simon Patterson had a tweet that they that the bike was OK.

It just it was on the limit for the number of kilometers that could be used that engine for. So it was basically waiting to blow up. It just was going to be a matter of time. Here's the first sign of it is the oil blowing past the ring. So it's like, yeah, we got that.

So that did present a little bit of drama as it were as it came through. But then Yaya wins the race. Mark is on the podium in second. He counts as the world title. Then Juan Mir on the podium for a Honda.

I mean, their home track, the one Honda owns. I mean, if you're going to do it, do it there. Bez with a fourth on the Aprilia looking great. Frankie had a fifth. Alex would finish.

He would come through the pack to be sixth there, which, you know, again, definitely not enough to save off Mark winning the title. And then you had Rella, Fernandez, Quattro, Arro, Zarco, Outager, Bastianini, Binder, Digia, Olivera and Chomcat Chantra scored a point. And, you know, Costa slid all the way down to like 17th over there. So the superlatives of Mark Marquez winning the World Championship. Here we go.

Number one, that gives him the exact same number of titles that Rossi has seven Moto GP World titles, one 250 title, one Moto two title Moto in a one twenty five titles for both. Right. That gets you to nine each. That leaves them short of the eight championships in the premier class of Giacomo Agostini has, which if Mark wins that he ties Giacomo Agostini. The other thing Marquez was six was six years between his last win in 2019 to 2025.

It's six years. That is the longest gap between titles of anybody. The only other one, supposedly, they said on the screen on the door, if he was there, somebody was five years apart. I looked at every world champion. I looked at a research.

I cannot find anybody other than four years apart. Now, Stoner did that. Agostini was three years apart in one of his titles. But still, that's an amazing stat unto itself to win a title and then be six years before you win another title. The title speaks to the conditioning of Mark to the determination of Mark and the never give up spirit of it.

Now, his celebration at the end was the more than a number concept, which I thought was brilliant. I don't really like the canned things, but that was a brilliant idea to be more than a number because it was it was him coming back. It was him winning on a different bike. Speaking of winning on a different bike, he is in some elite company of people who have won on different machines. Can you name those people?

Sorry, what's the specific question? Win World Championships and the premier class, but doing on two different bikes, two different manufacturers. Can you know the people who've done it? Well, Stoner, Stoner Rossi, obviously Rossi, Eddie Lawson. Correct.

The other two are old school. I presume I go do it. I go did it. Yeah. And there's one more.

Give me a decade. Gosh, I would think it would be the 60s. Oh, bloody hell. So you were not. No, go on.

You're gonna have to. Oh, sorry. Yeah, okay. You have to. That's some pretty elite company to be in.

It definitely is. Yeah. To be that way. It's like, man, that's just crazy stuff. The risk of inviting lots of vitriol.

I think we can start really start to talk about Mark Marquez's the greatest of all time. We're going to do. I think we should do sure. I really do think we can start to say that because yes, when he came into MotoGP on the Honda, it was arguably the best bike, but not by a lot because the Yamaha was there or thereabouts. But throughout his time in MotoGP and certainly as time has gone on, the depth of quality of machinery, never mind riders, has just got stronger and stronger.

And he, of course, has got older and older and more and more injured. So that is a factor as well. I mean, one of Ross's great strengths was that he was not a big crash. I know he broke his leg, but that was the only injury I think he suffered. Virtually the only races that he missed in his career.

I think was from that leg break. So I'm not saying that was lucky. I mean, Ross, he was great at, you know, not crashing, which is part of the game. You know, and he was really, really good at being fast and safe. So, you know, this this argument and to be John, but if Mark wins can win another title next year, and if he was to win a title on the night 50, then I think it's kind of case closed at that point.

To be perfectly honest, because he is an exceptional motorcycle racer. He is. And this one meant more. There was more emotion in this one than any of the other ones that he has won. And, yeah, one of the things that impressed me the most was they stayed on on board with Mark as he did his cool down lap.

Every single rider stopped and shook hands with Mark and it was really noticeable. It was very noticeable that even in the paddock as he came through the pits that all the teams were out, the Grissini boys stopped him and hugged him and patted him on the back and told him how great, you know, whatever, told him congratulations, whatever it was. This one is that one thing because I think this is the greatest comeback in sports. I do not know of anything else that can touch this one for me personally. I mean, I'm biased.

I'm a motorcycle guy. But wow, it is up there among the best. It's up along the idea of Jordan, of Woods coming back from their injuries and things. It's Mohammed Ali after years off of boxing coming and doing the battle, the rumble in the jungle or whatever. It is that kind of level that everybody knows about this.

I think a useful comparable one for me. I think the one that is closest to this is Mick Duhan. Yes. You know, having almost lost his leg and what he went through from a pain and sort of recuperation riding injured when he came back, which he shouldn't have done. I'm sure in retrospect he probably thinks he shouldn't have done.

I think that's kind of comparable to what Mark has done. Of course, the thing that sort of counts against Mick a little bit in my mind, at least, is that he only ever did it on the Honda, although it was a vicious machine. And to do what he did on that machine was just like next level as well. But for Mark to switch manufacturers, and let's not forget part of his great strength, this is political now. To make the decision when he did.

I mean, people go on about the fact that he gave up 25 million a year of salary, which OK, yeah. But I mean, it's not as if he was, you know, rubbing pieces of wood together to stay warm through the winter. So that doesn't count quite as much to me. But nevertheless, I mean, he took a big reputational risk in doing what he did. And let's not forget with the very greatest of respect to Grissini, which is a great team, but he did go on to old machinery as part of that getting acclimatized to not being on a Honda.

And he just, you know, played the game of chess and maneuvered himself to the prime position, didn't he? I mean, he completely screwed everybody else, one person in particular who hasn't recovered from it, as we saw this weekend. So, yeah, just blinding in every which way. I mean, cynical old me. Although I've kind of walked back a little bit from this thought, but I wrote it down.

So it was what I thought at the moment. I wrote down, oh, no, here's another excruciating slowdown lap celebration, you know, with the big screen and the slightly boringly sentimental video thing. But on retrospect, I kind of like it more than I did at the time. But I just thought the more than a number. I just thought that was absolutely genius because, of course, that, I think, was well, we all know is nice.

We all know he's 93. He's more than a number. You know, there's this debate about him and Rossi. It's bigger than that. But I think what it was really getting at was a little bit of a dig at Dawn over this whole no, he's not a nine time world champion.

He's a seven time world champion trying to sort of just disregard is probably the wrong word. But this F oneification is becoming the term of Moto GP where, you know, championships in other or lower classes are almost disregarded. And I just I don't agree with that. I mean, I understand they don't do it in Formula One if you win the F2 or if you want to win an F3000 if you go back a little bit or F3, whatever. They don't sort of tend to count those when they talk about how many championships people have got.

For me, he's a nine time world champion and seven of those happen to be in the premier class, which is, you know, people always say the premier class because it is the premier class. We all understand anybody who follows this sport knows what the bloody distinction is, you know, so we don't need to disregard it. We just understand the nuance. So I think the more than a number was partly the whole, you know, it's it's nine or seven depends on, you know, where you stand on that issue. But it was just a sort of a genius bit of promotional kind of gamesmanship by Ducati.

I love I really loved that. That was my favorite thing of the day, I think. Yeah, it was brilliant. There's no question about it. It like, you know, he the discussion now is who is the goat and we'll have that as an offseason because, you know, we can we can break it down any number of ways that you want to break it down.

You know, you the closest, like you said, was doing right. The only thing with doing, you know, for me was the fact that doing injury doing was much younger than Mark was, you know, given that right. And doing wasn't a world champion yet. He was probably going to be world champion in 93 when he had the accident. True.

Yeah. Yeah, very true. And it was not the global spotlight or 92 on the sport that there is now. Right. Either, you know, so it's a whole different world again.

You know, it's hard to compare. But in terms of a career or near career ending injury, I mean, for me, the doing leg injury is comparable in that sense. Sure. And he went on to dominate, you know, so and then he used to say Mark isn't going to dominate for the next couple of seasons. I mean, OK, we don't know how G Katie will cope with the rule change, but you'd be brave to bet against them.

And like you, I think now that he's won this championship, I suspect it's only going to inspire him to go on. I don't I don't think I'm right in some of my earlier thoughts that he might just sort of say, I've done it. I'm going to I'm going to go home and enjoy my retirement now. I think if anything, this just motivates me even more, particularly because Valentina Rossi keeps sticking the needle in. And that's only going to motivate Mark Marquez.

I don't know why Valentina Rossi keeps bringing this Malaysia thing up and the other bits and pieces that went on between them. But, you know, good for us, isn't it? I mean, it's good for us in a way. But can I say before I forget, Jim, I'm taking up too much of the bandwidth here, but I just thought I don't really believe in what's going on. I don't really believe in fate or any of these sorts of highfalutin things.

But it was so kind of significant to me that Mia got the third place because it meant that HRC were there on the podium celebrations with Marks and all of his old crew were there. And it was just such a nice kind of conclusion to this recent episode of his life and career to have that happen as well. I just thought it was just I just liked the symmetry of that, if that's sort of a slightly abstract way of saying it. But it just felt really sort of it was a really feel good thing. I thought plus, of course, Banyaya winning both races and that sort of redemption arc for him as well.

I mean, it was just a properly good feel good day. You know, I just these are the days when I just love the sport. And as you say, it was so noticeable that every single rider, one or two of whom have a bit of an issue with Mark Marquez or have had at various points over the years. But to a man, they all took time to sort of congratulate him because I think everybody can see how significant this achievement is. And I say I don't like the sort of clawingly sentimental aspects of this.

Sometimes it can be a bit overdone because it is at the end of day, it is just sport. This whole, oh, we're putting our lives on the line. Well, it's not like, you know, volunteering to go to war, is it? It's not that kind of putting your life on the line. But we enjoy watching it.

And sometimes people get hurt. So, I mean, they are risking a lot, but it's a risk reward business at this end of the sport. So, you know, I don't really buy into that kind of narrative. But, yeah, I thought it as a spectacle of what's good about the sport. There was a lot of good stuff to take from Sunday.

Right. So the last thing we need to talk about is the red elephant in the room, and that is Peko Banyaya looking to be wickedly on form. Now, we know that they tested at Mazzano and David Tardazzi said, hey, that test was very important to us. Well, Casey Stoner happened to be there with Banyaya when they did the test. So was there some Casey magic that happened that showed up here?

So what the heck actually did it? Because what did they do? Because this is a guy in Peko Banyaya who had the thousand-yard stare. I thought that he was at the point where he was going to divorce himself from Ducati whenever he had the opportunity because he couldn't ride the motorcycle that they gave him. So what happened, Rich?

What did they change? What made the magic come back to Banyaya? And I mean, made it come back in a way that he looked like Banyaya of 2023 and 2024. Yeah. Well, I don't know if anybody outside of the immediate circle in Ducati actually knows what they've changed.

All I have heard a number of people say that know what they're talking about is that, yes, Casey Stoner was at the Mazzano, was at the whole Mazzano weekend because of the whole Legends thing or Hall of Fame, whatever it is. And he stayed on for the Monday test. So he, I mean, Casey Stoner knows his way around a motorcycle. Okay. I mean, despite anybody's feelings about him as an individual, he knows how to ride a motorcycle and he knows how to get the best out of a motorcycle.

So he's advised you weren't looking when you're in trouble. But from what I have, did I read it or did I hear it? It wasn't on a podcast. I must have read it on somewhere. I thought you said you were listening to Paddock Chatter.

Oh, yeah, it was. Yeah, it was Paddock Pass. Paddock Pass, sorry. Podcast. Yes, thank you for reminding me.

He basically, because he's a straight talker, spoke to somebody high up in Ducati and said everything that Peco is saying, and particularly everything that, what did I say? Manuel Poggiari, who's an ex-racer, who's been in Peco's corner, whether he's a rider coach or a spotter, I'm not quite sure. They, the two of them, have been trying to persuade Ducati to go in a certain direction with parts set up, etc. And Ducati have resisted. This is what they said on this podcast.

Stoner comes to the Mizano test, observes everything, and basically says, yeah, they're right. Let him try that. And lo and behold, it's all back again. Now, whether they've gone back to, obviously there are certain things, from a homologation point of view, that they are not allowed to do in terms of parts or switching around. But I think they have a relative amount of freedom around chassis and clearly they can put suspension, whatever they want, etc.

So he turns up at Mategi with a bike that he's been asking for for quite a lot of the season, given that they're not allowed to test. And Ducati can hardly test at all with their primary riders, of course, because they don't get concessions. And suddenly, you know, it's rear end out, all on the front end, going, you know, sliding into corners, looking like the pannier that we've been used to seeing for the last several seasons. And he wins a canter. Yes, Mark Marquez had the pressure of the championship to win.

That is a factor. And Mategi is, although Mark's had a lot of success at Mategi, it's, you know, it's a bit of a love it, hate it sort of track, I'm sure, for most of the riders, because it's just sort of gas brakes, gas brakes. And, you know, we know that's the sort of track that probably favors pannier with a bike that he can work with. So there are factors and it'll be interesting to see what happens. I'm kind of ruling Mandelica out because, again, that's a weird track because of the climatic conditions and stuff.

Philip Ireland will be the acid test for me. I agree. So that one will be worth a close examination of how those two guys compare. Agreed. So here's my wonderment.

It's like remember when Rossi went to the Ducati? And Rossi says, well, I need this. I need that. I need this. I need that.

I need this. You don't – I must have this. And they had that one guy who was like the computer guru, and he's like, no, the computer says, no, you don't need that. And it was – and Rossi basically got stonewalled and eventually Ducati – because at the time, remember, they had the carbon fiber frame. And they eventually relented and went to a conventional aluminum frame, delta box frame, if you will.

Yeah. What was his name? I cannot think of his name. He was the guy in a wheelchair, wasn't he? Yes, he was.

So my question is, was Ducati doing what they did back then? Like, hey, look, we have data that says you don't need it. Or was this part of the Marc Marcais effect where, hey, I don't know what you're doing, Vignette, but the guy over there is on the same bike you have and he's winning everything? Yeah. I think there's – and again, this is just me speculating.

But I think there's a certain resistance within Ducati because I'd seem to recall De Vizierzo having a few issues around this as well and ultimately falling out. And we know for 100% fact that Lorenzo kind of just basically walked out of that team because he was so frustrated. And it was pure irony was that the weekend they gave him what he asked for, which was Mugello, I think, in his second season at the team. And it was like simple things like ergonomics around the tank so he could sort of grip the tank with his legs and be more comfortable on the bike. He goes and wins the race.

And Ducati suddenly started, you know, management looking at each other thinking, oh, we might have made a mistake here. But by this stage, you know, Lorenzo had signed for Honda. They have a reputation for not listening to their riders. And allied to the fact, as you've just identified, Jim, I think there's absolutely bang on the nail. Mark Marquez turns up, who again is a rider that people know because of his sheer level of talent.

You know, he will ride around the problems. But the danger of that is that Honda can tell you all about the danger of that particular kind of a rider. So Ducati don't seem to be able to learn on this one. And so Casey Stoner was obviously significant in terms of helping Peco. I think most of the hard jobs have been done by Poggioli, by the sounds of it, assisting Bagnari, but just being met with a literal red wall of brick wall of no, you can't have that.

That's not the right direction. And by the way, he's the guy over the other side is doing all right. So stop moaning and be better. Probably is a bit of a harsh way of saying it is not totally accurate, of course, because we don't know for sure. But I suspect that's a large part of what's going on.

Yeah. Again, if it's just a setup issue, it's amazing that they wouldn't have tried it. I just that's just mind numbing to me. Like, look, this is the guy riding the bike. Like Jeremy Burgess said, if he thinks he's going to go faster, he's got gold handlebars.

You put gold handlebars on the bike. Yeah, it's that simple. Yeah. Don't even practice sessions because, you know, given the year that Peco has had, I had Jucati relented. They might well just let him test during pre-practice sessions or even practice or qualifying sessions because he had nothing to lose, really, did he?

Because, OK, they can't go out doing endless laps testing elsewhere because they're not allowed to do that. We do understand that. But there just seems to be a total inability sometimes, it seems, with Jucati in particular to listen to what the riders are asking for. Yeah. I don't know.

I'd love to speak to, as I'm sure you would love to speak to Gigi D'Alenia and get their perspective, not that they would ever sort of tell the truth on this one, I suppose. But Jucati might, with a reasonable amount of, or you would sort of say they're entitled to say, we've won the championship. It doesn't really matter which rider does it. And they've won the team's championship. They've won everything and they need to win.

But it doesn't really look good when it's only one guy that's done all the winning until this weekend just gone. Now, it must be said, one swallow a summer doesn't make, which is a UK phrase. So, you know, we do need to see this repeated at other tracks. I don't think Bagnars are particularly great at Indonesia. Mark's obviously had some unpleasant experiences there, has crashed quite a bit there.

So that might not be a useful gauge. But as I say, Philip Island, which is a track that everybody loves, you know, plays to the strengths of all the bikes and the riders really. So that will be the true acid test, I think. And if Bagnars can really take the fight, not necessarily beat him, but at least make a fight of it, which hasn't been the case until Netege, then I think we can look forward to next year. With a bit more optimism.

Yeah, I never mind Aprilia and Honda being resurgent. Hopefully Yamaha getting there and maybe KTM sort of KTM is so up and down and it's only a costume now that's looking really like the guy that consistently can do stuff. Although Vignale has obviously ruined his season with that crash at Saxon Ring where he smashed his shoulder up. So it's a bit hard to read KTM. But certainly, you know, I'd settle for the very least, you know, Bagnars on equal terms with Marc Marquez next year and duking it out for the championship with a Honda and an Aprilia, you know, more often than not in the mix.

That would be great. Be fantastic. Maybe Bagnars and Marc take points off each other, allowing one one-mere to win a world title on a Honda. Who knows? Anyway, it's all speculation and fun until it's a good time.

It bodes well for the last few races because Marc does not have the way of the championship. So they both could go at each other hammer and talk. And if you don't think Marc wants to be Vignale when Vignale throws his best game at him, you're sadly mistaken. Just like Vignale wants to be Marc when Marc is throwing his best game at him. So that's just where it is.

And Bagnars is going to be super motivated now. If he can sort of turn up and have the same feeling again, then, you know, he's going to be the best driver in the world. For sure. All right, folks, we'll figure that all out after we get through with Mandelica this coming weekend and we can come back and talk about all that. And in the meantime, while we're gone, everybody ride safe.

Cheerio.